Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns eBook

Ventilators, life-lines, parts of the superstructure
and deck woodwork came down and were stowed in their
proper place. Boats dropped from their davits,
were hurriedly lashed together, their plugs pulled,
and left to sink, riding attached to sea anchors formed
of their own spars and oars. “Cleared for
action!” when reported to the commander meant
exactly that! Not a superfluous object in the
way of the activities of a fighting crew.

“Battle stations!”

The four friends from Seacove knew exactly where they
were to be all through the battle—­if they
lived. Whistler knew that he was to stand in
the corridor of the handling-room for Turret Number
Two, until he was called to relieve some wounded or
exhausted member of his gun crew. His immediate
order was to “stand by.”

Every other individual aboard the Kennebunk
had his station, from the firemen shoveling tons of
coal into the fiery maws of the furnaces to keep the
indicator needles of the steam-gages at a certain figure,
to the range-finders high up in the fighting-tops,
bending over their apparatus.

In the turrets the officers fitted telephone receivers
to their heads. The gunners, literally “stripped
for action” to their waists, their glistening,
supple bodies as alert as panthers, crouched over the
enormous guns.

Up from the sea appeared the great fighting machines
of the enemy. They could not run away this time.
Inveigled into range of the Allied ships, the Hun
must fight at last!

A word spoken into a telephone from the conning tower
to one of the fighting tops! Then, an instant
later, to Turret Number One! A roar that shook
the ship and seemed to shake the very heavens, while
the flash of the fourteen-inch rifle blinded for a
second the spectators!

A cheer rose from all parts of the ship, even before
the tops signaled a hit. After that the men fought
the ship in silence.

Alone in the corridor, Whistler Morgan felt that it
would be easier to be on active duty in this time
of stress. Yet he had been taught that his station
was quite as important as that of any other man or
boy aboard.

Through the half open door of the handling room he
heard other men loading powder bags and shells upon
the electric ammunition hoist that led to the turret
above.

Suddenly the whole ship staggered. A deafening
explosion, different from that of the guns, shocked
him. An enemy shell had burst aboard the Kennebunk!

“Relief!”

Whistler sprang through the corridor and up to the
gun deck. Was the call for him?

He stopped to look at a perspiring gun crew.
They worked the gun with the precision of automatons.
Wherever the shell had burst it had not interfered
with the firing of the huge guns of Number Two Turret.

Another enemy shell burst inboard of the Kennebunk.
There was a hail of bits of steel and flying wreckage.
Whistler stood squarely on his feet and began to breathe
again.